As of Monday morning, July 18, 2016, an NIBIB-funded experiment is nested within the 4,975 pounds of cargo hurtling towards the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule. The experiment will grow bone cells in the microgravity of space and may help researchers understand the bone loss that is common to bed-ridden patients and to astronauts.

With over two-thirds of US adults owning a smartphone, and the rise in miniaturized sensors that are used for remote health monitoring, mobile health (mHealth) is beginning to experience a boom. While the technology has the potential to expand access to services, and improve personal wellness and public health, such benefits may not be fully realized unless greater privacy and security measures are implemented. Read more from Dartmouth.

Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have created a new type of tissue chip that can better represent human tissues compared with current chips, and can be more widely used for drug testing. By engineering the chips as a silk gel, the researchers circumvented many of the problems with existing devices. The new chip also has the potential to someday be an implantable treatment itself.

A team from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) has used a new imaging technique to measure how people break down dietary fat into products the cells of their bodies can use. The technique is a cost effective and convenient way to image this critical process—also called fat metabolism—and provides a way to test interventions aimed at reducing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and the increased risk of heart attack and stroke that can be caused by metabolic syndrome.

Scientists have, for the first time, been able to tell apart features distanced only 5 nanometers from each other to achieve the so far highest resolution in optical microscopy. The technology, also called 'discrete molecular imaging', enhances the team's DNA nanotechnology-powered super-resolution microscopy platform with an integrated set of new imaging methods. Read more from the Wyss Institute.

Innovative technology developed by NIH-funded researchers has been able to find and facilitate the killing of cancer cells in mice without harming the nearby healthy tissue. A treatment using this technology in humans could reduce the rate of cancer recurrence or metastasis.

A new procedure that combines video-assisted surgery with real-time image guidance is helping surgeons remove lung nodules while preserving healthy tissue. The procedure was developed and is being tested at the NIBIB-funded Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Suite (AMIGO). Read the article at www.rsna.org/news

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a serious global health problem accounting for 1.3 million worldwide deaths annually. NIBIB-funded scientists used computers to model the formation of tuberculosis granulomas in the lung -- the non-active (latent) form of infection found in 2 billion individuals worldwide (11 million in the U.S.) that can activate to become a life-threatening infection. Employing a computer model aims to speed analysis of TB’s complex life-cycle and to identify potential new antibiotics, antibiotic targets, and biomarkers that can predict transition to active infection.

Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her colleagues have managed to create living bone from stem cells. First, they made a CT scan to create a 3-D image of each pig’s jaw. From cow bone, they sculpted a “scaffold” — a three-dimensional copy of the pig bone. Read more at New York Times.

In 2011, researchers supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health, developed a technique, called phage-assisted continuous evolution (or PACE), that rapidly generates proteins with new, sought-after properties and therapeutic potential. Originally conceived as a tool for pharmaceutical development, the researchers now have shown its potential in protecting crops from insects.